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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28364286">the first in flames</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessicaa/pseuds/Jessicaa'>Jessicaa</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Blaseball (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canonical Character Death, Gen, I think about Natha (not a toaster [human]) a lot, I wrote the toaster lore I can contradict it all I want, Incineration, The Trench, a single swear, natha isn't a toaster here, toaster? more like toast hir! get it? like on fire</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 22:41:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,504</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28364286</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessicaa/pseuds/Jessicaa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of the day, sie was a Taco, and Tacos didn't care about the game they were forced into.<br/>||<br/>A short fic about the Tacos' only incineration being greeted in the Trench by the Crabs' first.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the first in flames</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Full disclosure that I am not a Crab and my characterization of Nora is based purely off of what one friend has told me about her. Otherwise, enjoy!!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kansas City Breath Mints @ Los Angeles Tacos</p><p>Season 3 Day 16</p>
<hr/><p>Boyfriend winked at Natha as they slowed past home, and sie had let hir second run through before the top of the third.</p><p>The stadium was nearly empty, as it usually was, and the away side seemed to cheer louder for Boyfriend’s sacrifice score than home had cheered for Natha the whole game. With the ball in one hand, the other moved a braid from out of hir eyes and sie looked above Whit's eyeline as he prepared to bat.</p><p>Even with the eclipse, it was seventy-two degrees out, and the sliver of sun still peeking out from behind the moon’s shadow was radiating straight onto Natha’s prosthetic hand.</p><p>Sie tapped hir left hand twice with hir right forefinger before adjusting hir stance on the mound. With the sun's glare, hir hand was hot to the touch, but that wasn't much of a concern. A journalist had asked about this ritual once before, but nobody asked again since Natha hadn't given a straight answer to much of anything. Said seven was hir favorite number, so sie tapped hir fingers twice, five fingers plus two taps equals seven - never told anyone sie really meant the five plus two thing, but sie did. It was just one of those things sie started doing and never bothered to stop.</p><p>The first thing sie felt burn was hir left arm; it was slow, and sie threw a foul. Moses was screaming at hir to hurry up and pitch the next ball, but as sie went to tap hir fingers for the next throw, the flame continued to engulf hir.</p>
<hr/><p>The first thing Natha did upon consciousness in the Trench was shiver. Sie stood up, next, and was approached by a shadow who introduced herself as Nora Perez. A Crab, the only Crab, who had been incinerated yet.</p><p>The Hall seemed quite empty upon first glance. Behind where sie had fallen was a long stairway, which seemed to pass above the ceiling itself. It was bright up there, too bright, and Natha quickly looked back to Nora. Her desk seemed out of place, a single object in a room otherwise solely adorned by peanut crates and Blaseball portraits.</p><p>Nora asked hir name first, as she was told to do by the Monitor the day she started working reception for the Trench.</p><p>She asked about the Crabs too, but Natha didn't respond.</p><p>Third, she asked what Natha's team was.</p><p>“Tacos,” sie had said.</p><p>A second later, Nora had given hir a slight smile, and laughed to herself. "Sorry, could you repeat that? Time is, well. There's no reason you would understand it yet. I was in another room when you responded."</p><p>Natha opened hir mouth, and closed it again. After a deep sigh, sie answered "Sure, yeah. Tacos. Los Angeles."</p><p>Nora's figure jumped a few feet to the side in an instant, but she seemed to acknowledge hir answer: “You're the first one!”</p><p>Natha still couldn't make out her face, read whether that was joy, fear, confusion. Normally sie would have been quick to scour the large hall sie found herself in, pouring stories out to whoever sie found along the way.</p><p>This time though, still with a slight burning sensation across hir lower arm, Natha moved further away from the desk Nora was settled at, ignoring her comment, and with a final glance around, sat hirself against a crate of peanuts at the start of the otherwise empty labyrinth of a room.</p><p>If this was still LA, sie would, with a skip in hir step, apologize to Nora for hir distance, explain that fans always approached hir, would say that they asked for hir autograph, and that sie had to try to figure out if they wanted it because they cared about hir or because they wanted to mock hir. The Tacos were always a bad team, but sie didn't mind much, sie would have said. Hard to differentiate between fans and other players sometimes, sie wanted to say.</p><p>Natha wasn't ready to tell these stories to Nora yet, though hir silence wouldn't last long. After a few days, with a can of grape soda in hand, sie would find Bryanayah with Nora, and they ranted about Los Angeles -the traffic, the smoke, the team manager- but, with hir recent descent to the Trench, sie remained sitting silently.</p><p>Eyes wide with confusion, Nora glanced from Natha sitting on the cold, blue marble, to the glimmering path the Monitor always placed on the floor to direct a new soul to its rest in the Trench.</p><p>"You see the line, right?" Nora asked, wholly sincere. “I can… show you where the others are if you'd like?” she continued, looking back to the path stemming from Natha's feet; the people she guided were usually prompt to accept her help along their paths.</p><p>Lacking a response, Nora moved out from behind the desk and stood looking down next to hir.</p><p>“I know the circumstances of course, but are you alright?... Here, would you like my jacket?” she offered softly.</p><p>“It's dark. Can’t see,” was all sie responded.</p><p>Sie quickly added “Can’t see anything,” as if trying to blame someone. </p><p>“Oh! That’s. You'll adjust quickly, really. It’s… the other rooms are brighter, I can show you there? It’s what I'm good at down here.”</p><p>Natha curled hir lip, shrugged, and added “Why should I go there?”</p><p>Nora looked to her feet for an answer. Even with the confusion, she maintained her animated presence -there was a steep learning curve towards guiding new arrivals through the Trench, and while the Monitor had seemingly no ulterior motives, Nora didn't want to leave anyone at the entryway-</p><p>Natha interrupted her train of thought. “I mean fuck, they already incinerated me. Lead the way.”</p><p>Nora offered a hand and pointed back to the line on the floor. "I know it seems easy, but the floor moves sometimes. Gets confusing." Natha just nodded.</p><p>Sie reached backwards as they passed through a tall archway at the end of the hall, and snagged a peanut from the top of the last pile, cracked it open, ate it, and dropped the shell behind hir.</p><p>“Do I know anyone here? I…" sie clicked her tongue. "I never kept up with the game outside of my team.” A pang of guilt hit, but it faded as quickly as it came. At the end of the day, sie was a Taco, and Tacos didn't care about the game they were forced into. Maybe if sie had read the contract closer, realized the team was for Blaseball, maybe if, maybe-</p><p>“You know <em>me</em> now!” Nora smiled back at hir, before scrutinizing a fork in their path. “You're meant to go this way. I have to finish up front for the day, but there's others there to help. If I feel one of your friends come, I'll let you know first.”</p><p>“Thrilling,” Natha snarked. “Thanks.”</p>
<hr/><p>Every evening, Natha sat with the others in the Trench and retold stories of hir team, waiting for the inevitable <strike>day</strike> <strike>week</strike> <strike>game</strike> call that another Taco was arriving. Nora called hir to the front once later in season three, for two of the Tacos. Wyatt and Sexton, she said, felt like they were being Incinerated. They never came to the Trench, and Natha returned to hir room early.</p><p>Sie wasn't angry, really, sie wouldn't want the same fate sie felt for any of hir friends. But maybe sie began to expect it. What kept the flare of the sun, the gaze of the umpires, the pull of the Trench, away from hir team?</p><p>When they joined the Hall, Boyfriend said they didn't remember game sixteen of season three, the game that Natha reminded them was where sie watched hir last run. They were nice enough, all of the Debts had been, but none of the Debts were Tacos.</p><p>Nobody could even look Jaylen in the eyes when she was there with them, so her existence was an empty slot in all of their minds between her departure and her Debts. Tours with the Debts had tired Nora out, Natha remembered, because a group of them had all left their rooms to keep her company at the front, traced their respective lines to get back where they started in the Trench, and followed faintly behind to ask questions about the world since they left it.</p><p>Sie thought of Tiana, and the stories she told of the Garages- they loved her as long as they knew her, they really did. But, as she said, "Sometimes you have to leave the ones you love to make them better versions of themselves."</p><p>Sie wouldn't know if the thirteen others sie knew as Tacos placed hir on the same pedestal as the Garages asserted for their own until one of them joined hir in the Trench. And yet, with all the calls Nora received, Natha's yet to know what mark sie left on hir city.  </p>
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